Shattered Doll
by itsonlyme
Summary: On a warm night in March, Mark remembers an old friend. Before there was April, before there was Mimi, there was Jenny...PostRENT


Disclaimer: Not mine, but of course, you already knew that, didn't you? I only own what doesn't obviously belong.

A/N: This is my first attempt at a RENT fic. It is Post-RENT, and is a lead-in to another story I've been writing recently. The concept sprung from an idea I had when my friends and I were talking about RENT during musical rehearsals…so, if it suits you, be gentle. However, if it sucks, please don't sugarcoat it. Well, here goes!

A/N 2: Oh, and it's PG for some language...forgot to mention that before...

Shattered Doll

**March 20th, 1993**

(Mark's POV)

The other night while I was digging through all the junk in the loft, I found some footage that I had nearly forgotten about. It had been put on videotape, and was marked "Christmas 1988." I remember that Christmas season very well: it was the last time we celebrated with April, and the last time Jenny came to see us.

Before April, before Mimi, there was Jenny. She was the one person in the world that Roger loved more than anything, even music. Even when April, and finally Mimi, came along, there was always Jenny. His princess, his baby, his precious and only little sister. The one woman in his family that hadn't disowned him. She looked so much like Roger; except her eyes were a bright blue and her skin was smooth and white. "Like a porcelain doll," Maureen always said. That's what Jenny was to us: our doll.

Certain things remind me of Jenny. Anytime I hear someone quote Monty Python, I think of her standing on the coffee table in the loft, reciting "The Upper-class Twit Of The Year Show" perfectly from memory and the enthusiasm in her voice when she would get to the part where Oliver ran himself over. When I see a girl with braided pigtails, I remember the way she wore her hair whenever she came to see us. When Friday afternoon rolls around, I still think of the weekends she spent with us.

Certain music reminds me of her, too. If Cheap Trick comes on the radio, I remember Jenny standing on our table-no, more like a cheap-ass counter-singing along to I Want You To Want Me while Roger played the guitar parts, the rest of us standing around in a makeshift mosh pit head banging. U2 reminds me of Roger trying desperately to teach Jenny the correct words to Sunday Bloody Sunday while she picked out the tune on his guitar. The one song that really takes me back, though, is No More "I Love You's" by Annie Lennox. That was the song playing the night Jenny left us, and the memory of what brought it about will most likely never fade from my mind.

Whenever Jenny would come to visit, Roger would try his damndest to be sober for her arrival. Then, when Jenny was asleep, he'd go over to April's apartment and shoot up. Jenny wasn't stupid, though. I don't know how long she actually knew that her brother was an addict, but I have a feeling that she knew what was going on from the very beginning and never said a word.

December 27th, 1988. I had gone to the store to get some food and shit for New Year's Eve, and Jenny was staying in the apartment. Collins had gone off somewhere, as had Maureen. Benny was with Allison, and Roger and April were god-knows-where, so Jenny was left alone. Most people would find it irresponsible to leave a 15 year old alone in a loft in Alphabet City, but Jenny swore to me that she wouldn't let anyone in while I was gone. I thought she would be safe.

By the time I got back, the apartment was in shambles. Furniture was overturned and some of it broken, a broken beer bottle lay on the floor, and things were thrown everywhere in general. The radio was playing No More "I Love You's," and Roger was sitting in a chair, staring at a second broken beer bottle that he held in his hand. He was obviously high, and he looked like he had been crying. April was gone, and to my horror, so was Jenny.

"The roof," Roger said, still staring at the bottle in his hand. "Mark, I didn't mean to…" It occurred to me then what had happened, and I raced up the stairs to the roof.

When I got to the roof, the first thing I saw was Collins. His back was to me, and when I slammed the door and he turned around, his face had an angry look on it that softened when he realized it was me. Maureen was on the ground, and next to her was a shaking blue bundle. A sudden stab of fear hit me in the stomach when I realized that the bundle was Jenny, wrapped in her favorite blue coat with the hood pulled over her face.

"Jenny," I said, kneeling next to the bundle. Her head rose slowly, and I could see the fear in her eyes and the cut that slashed the side of her pretty porcelain-like face. Her lower lip was trembling, and tears were silently pouring down her face and mixing with the blood from her cheek.

"They were fighting," she whispered as she sat up, still hugging the coat around her. "They were both high, and they got into a fight. Roger was really pissed off, and I heard the bottle break, so I decided to make a run for it. I was going to run and get you, but I had to run between April and Roger to get to the door. He was swinging at April, and he caught my face instead…He didn't seem to care, Mark. It was almost as if I didn't matter anymore…" She finished the tale sobbing, and she sobbed even harder as Maureen and I bandaged her cut and lead her downstairs and back to the loft and her bed.

I'll never forget the look on her face the next day when she came out of her room. She was fully dressed and had her suitcases packed. The only words she said were to Collins: "I called my mother, and I'm going home. I told her I wasn't feeling well, and that I fell on the stairs and cut my face. Can you help me get to Central Park? My dad's waiting to pick me up there." Without another word, Collins took her to Central Park. That was the last time we saw her. The doll-like façade was marred by that single streak of red hidden under the Band-Aid, and I knew as she left that things were definitely going to change.

Looking at that tape brought back the memories of the happy days before the fight, and it makes me wonder what Jenny's been doing the last five years. She started writing to Collins the next week, and every week thereafter, always making sure to ask about us and sending us what money she could from her job. Through Collins she learned everything about our lives, and through Collins we heard about her many successes and failures.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if that night had never existed. A whole host of maybes and what ifs. I think about something she told me on Christmas Eve: A promise she made to come back permanently one day, and I wonder if she would have had things happened differently. The tape will be a feature a week from tonight, when Maureen and Joanne and Collins and Mimi and Roger come to the loft for movie night. Roger says it doesn't hurt as much to see April any more, and wondered if I could find something with Jenny in it. When he says things like that, I know that he misses her, and would take it back if he could. I know he misses her more than words can say; his princess, his baby, his shattered doll.


End file.
